UK GDP Data Sources

Finding GDP data from the ONS is often a struggle, so this is a reference page which I’ll keep updated with relevant links.

The ONS publish three sets of GDP data each quarter: Month 1, Month 2 and Month 3; giving estimates of growth in the preceding quarter, and revisions to older data. The “Month 1” figures only contain real GDP, using estimates of output from the Index of Services and Index of Production. Month 2 gives us the first estimates of nominal GDP, with the breakdowns by category of income and of expenditure. Month 3 is the Quarterly National Accounts, the first complete look at the national accounts for the quarter.

Every ONS data series has a unique code; for nominal GDP this is “YBHA”. To look up the most recent data for a given series, you need to know whether the M2 or M3 data is current, i.e. which was most recently revised. (If there is a way around that, I haven’t found it).

Below are the links for commonly used series from Month 2, in CSV format. The GDP data includes both quarterly and annual values, and monthly too for the inflation and employment series. (CP = Current Prices, CVM = Chained Volume Measure)

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YBHA in the 2nd estimate of 3Q GDP looks OK at 5.1%. Better than the first estimate, I think. Not quite the pace of 2Q. US style, QoQ annualised, is a very nice 6.4% pace. One more quarter of this and 2014 will look pretty darn good.

We really need it, of course, as those tax revenues on income are still looking horrible. Perhaps we should cut income tax rates further and push up VAT to 25%, as those Custmoms and Excise receipts are growing nicely. Would probably kill the goose, of course.

In the YBHA file, what is the difference between the first set of data going from 1948 to 2014 (yearly) and the rest going from 1955 to 2015 Q3 quarterly?
I’m searching for the quarterly historical data of the UK GDP (seasonally adjusted). Any advice?
Thanks a lot!